Renting with pets – Part 4 – Long term

Last in the renting with pets series today. So you’re all settled in with your pet, but as a tenant what do you need to think about long term?

• Toilet habits – Obvious really but keep the litter tray clean, change the litter regularly and use a mat underneath to protect floors. For dogs or larger animals if they go outside make sure to clean up after them regularly to keep any grass in good condition. You might need to reseed the lawn sometimes if any yellow patches come up from animal pee.
• Carpets – Pets like dogs and cats will put a bit more strain on carpets. There will be inevitable accidents, muddy paw prints and puke so make sure you always have a good spot cleaner to hand, I also shampoo our carpets once or twice a year (depending on how dirty they get). You can rent carpet cleaning machines from DIY stores for a pretty reasonable cost to give them a really deep clean, I’d definitely recommend doing this before you move out. Rugs are also great for protecting problem areas.
• Our cats are pretty good at using the scratching post and not clawing the carpet or furniture, make sure you provide them somewhere to scratch though as they will scratch something to sharpen their claws and you don’t want it to be the door frames or carpet! Sometimes they won’t use a post and would prefer to use a tree or fence post – you might need to discourage this dependent on your property. There are lots of different scratching posts or mats available, if they won’t use a post try a mat and vice versa. If they really won’t use the pet store ones and prefer wood then you could DIY something or set up a piece of wood they are allowed to scratch. They will often go back to the same place so for example if they seem to like a certain fence post just rig a plank to it and they can scratch that rather than the fence.
• Smells – litter trays, wet dogs, water in tanks, pet food left out in hot weather etc can all make some unpleasant smells. You will probably need to vacuum more often now you have pets (I used to hoover just once a week now try to at least twice a week) or bath/groom your dog more regularly. We change the litter as often as we need to, to try and avoid the cat wee smell. Also due to not having our own bin and sharing with the landlords we use litter tray liners, we just pick up the liner and its contents and put it into a small bin liner, then tie the top and take it out to the bin – this keeps the smell at bay until the bins are collected. We use a freshening powder in with the cat litter, and also have a plug in and air freshening sprays in the bathroom for if it does get a bit whiffy. We try to air the place as often as we can, although being a basement flat it’s nice to get some fresh air anyway. We change the water often and clean the filter weekly on the turtle tank. You may also need to use febreeze on carpets and curtains, I use ‘shake n vac’ type carpet deodorising powders every now and then to freshen carpets and rugs.
• Heavy tanks or vivariums can mark floors, a rug or floor protective mat underneath will help catch any water and protect the floor. We need to get a new tank and when we do I’m thinking of this, as our current one seems to be ok but a larger heavier new tank might leave dents in the floor.

Pets are the best way I’ve found to make a house a home, enjoy them!

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Picture Positioning

I had a massive sort out of the bedroom and my clothes over the weekend, if you're interested in buying anything see my ebay page http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/willow5001. Loads of bargains most stuff starts at 99p! Anything that doesn't sell will go off to swapping websites or the charity shop as I love all the space in the bedroom now, post to come on that!

After hanging some pictures on the wall in the living room and playing with some table settings, I've moved some pictures and canvasses around in the flat, so just a quick update on the bookshelves and turtle tank.

The tank did look like this

A little cluttered and some of the photos were getting damp due to being near to the seam in the lid, now it looks like this

A bit less, the photos are all here now 

In the bookshelves in the hallway, I moved the pinboard in here as well and a few other pictures as the candles and canvases have moved off (one canvas on the table, the other 2 currently homeless). Also the china doll sherlock holmes lives here in the corner, no comment on that one it's not mine.

So that's the little change around a few weeks ago, there have been a few more switches recently, updates soon!

Office to Dining Room

OK dining room makes it sound grander than a hallway we use as a room but I switched around our office at the weekend, getting rid of the desk and trading it for a table.

I shared this in progress photo on Sunday

Sunday morning I managed to get the room completely empty and ready to reassemble. When reorganising a room like this I find that for me it works best to empty as much of it as possible and then piece it back together again, it helps you to rethink the layout. I also gave the floors a good clean while there was no furniture in here. I left the turtle tank in there as it's pretty heavy and bulky and I was doing this on my own (why do I choose weekends Tom's working to get productive??), I just put sofa throws underneath it so I could slide it around easily and without scratching the floor.

Can you spot all the furniture pushed into the hallway in this photo? I'll freecycle the desk and desk chair and if there's no takers they'll go to the tip (anyone interested let me know)

I had emptied the desk completely, the stuff on the shelves under the tank are the only things that were kept in the desk I thought we might still want access to like sellotape, pens, batteries, paper etc. The rest of the stuff from the desk like photos, installation CDs for various things, envelopes and stationary we rarely use went in a small ottoman on top of the wardrobe in the hallway (all 3 are now full after this kitchen reorganisation)

I had a suspicion that where we had the turtle tank wasn't the best place for it, as it was on a short wall but facing into the longest part of the room, if that makes sense? This room is pretty awkward as it's a small room with 4 doors into it and it's an irregular shape, with a random change in wall depth on the long wall (you can see it in the left of the photo above) and also the living room door juts out into the room, this photo is taken from the hallway door, the bedroom door is first on the left then the living room is actually a bit larger so the wall comes out into the room

So I set the table up where the desk had been and it looked like this

Not good. When the benches were both tucked right under they were just about out of the way of the bathroom door, but if someone was sitting at the table it would be in the way, and if you pulled it out to seat 2-4 people the door would be completely blocked. I'd had an inkling that the tank might be better in that inset part of the wall, as the wall with the bathroom door on is the narrowest part of the room so not the best place for a table.

I scooted the tank over and set the table up in the other corner and voilà, fits perfectly!

Sorry this room is so hard to get good photos of, there's little natural light an it is so small and awkward that I can never get a shot of the whole room! Anyway I hope you get the idea...

After refilling the tank and putting the room back together it now looks like this

The baskets under the tank are just for now, I want to get 4 matching storage boxes for these shelves to hold turtle food and the remaining stuff from the desk that I thought we would want easy access to. The cat litter went in the cupboard under the tank along with the tray liners, bin liners for emptying it etc. 

Our new little dining area, the table fits so well in that corner, like it was made for it!

Coasters, I made 6 of these last year, 4 are in the living room with actual words on and these are made from the excess tiles I had left over.

The benches tuck away underneath pretty well so when not in use can go out the way. I might even attempt a DIY sewing project (I cannot sew so it might be laughable) and do some seat cushions. You can see part of the old computer hidden away underneath the bench above. I dismantled it and the screen, printer, keyboard and mouse are all in the entrance hallway stored away but within easy access and the cables are all still plugged into the back of the computer so it can be easily set back up if needed, although I don't know how often that will be.

My idea is that when working on the laptop for short times I will just sit on a bench, but if I'm going to be working there for a while I can move the bench and sit on a dining chair instead. We have 4 stacked in the hallway and a chair with a back is more comfortable.

The litter tray is still in here as I couldn't find anywhere else to put it, but it can easily be scooted into the bathroom when we are eating (don't want to have to look at that during dinner!)

All in all I'm pretty pleased with in, well actually I am totally in love with it and am sat there writing this post now! We are yet to eat there because there were some bolts not included with the table that we need to attach one last part, the bit that goes between the 2 legs to keep it stable. It's still a bit wobbly without that but hoping to go and get some bolts and get that attached asap. 

A reminder of what it looked like before

There seems to be so much more space in here and it seems lighter without the tank in the corner, which is a bonus in a room with no windows!

Friday inspiration post tomorrow, I'm presenting an award at a ceremony tonight to the apprentice of the year in the category that I won last year and absolutely terrified of speaking in front of that many people so as you are reading this I'm probably pacing the flat practising, wish me luck!

Leaks

I was changing the cat litter tray the other day when I noticed this

Water behind the turtle tank. Damn.Well actually at the time I think I said some words rather more explicit than 'damn'

This looks a bit odd that I just took a photo of the spreading puddle, the thing is I can't move the tank on my own (it's heavy) so had to wait for Tom to get home, and had already got the turtles out and started draining the water with the syphon at this point! Also I turned off the extension cord at the wall as soon as I noticed it sat in a puddle.

So the turtles got an unscheduled trip into the bath, Tom got a panicky phone call from me that went something along the lines of 'when will you be home...ok no rush but the tank's leaking water everywhere', and then we spent Friday night sorting it out. It seems the tank itself is fine no leaks from the joins or anything, but the filter was leaking. It sits in the cupboard in the stand and the water was going out the back so we hadn't noticed until the puddle got quite large.

We dismantled it, cleaned it out and put it back together carefully, so far it seems to be ok (We think maybe we didn't put it back together properly last time), but we might need to get a new one sooner rather than later as it's starting to show it's age and is meant for fish not turtles. The stand has also gotten quite damp from standing in the water, so it's looking a bit gross. We got the dehumidifier in to try and dry it out (and obviously cleaned up all the water) but it might be time for a more modern one sooner that we thought.